Page 79 of Love.V2
“Tess.” He nodded in my direction, taking the coffee from Danny. “How are you this morning?”
His voice lacked its usual pep.
“I…” I wasn’t sure how much to say. “I was just talking to Danny about his early flight. Dylan had to get up early, too.”
“Right. That’s right.” Eric’s usual personality broke through for a moment as he winked at me. “I always suspected there was something going on with you two.”
“He didn’t say anything to you, did he? About Worther?” Danny interjected. Eric glanced between us.
“He just said he had to go, and he was talking to someone on the phone about a lot of work stuff I didn’t catch.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat that had been there for hours. “He asked me to trust him.”
I wasn’t sure why that last bit popped out, but it seemed relevant somehow. Like the men in front of me needed to know I was out on a limb here, too. Deep down, I hoped they’d give me some information to ease the roiling in my gut.
Eric looked pointedly down at his coffee. “Maybe for the best,” he muttered, just as Danny nodded.
“Give us another day, Tess. It’ll all come out in the open soon. Just…not right now.”
Dylan being cagey was one thing, but all three of them? It was like I’d stumbled onto some kind of international conspiracy, which was ridiculous. We were an advertising agency, for Pete’s sake. What could be so secretive?
“Tess!”
Before I could demand answers, Noel burst from the other side of the office, Henry hot on her heels. She looked panicked, and for a wild second I wondered if she knew what was going on here, and was coming to tell me.
“The Botto files are gone.”
I blinked, staring as she practically sprinted closer.
“What?”
She skidded to a stop in front of me. “All the Botto files. Gone.”
“The presentation for tomorrow, the source files, all our previous iterations. Even the original RFP is corrupted!” Henry was practically panting, worry emanating from him in waves.
“What do you mean, gone?” Corrupted? What? My poor, sleep-deprived brain was being whipped around. From a lonely hotel room to a corporate conspiracy, and now whatever this was?
“It was Victoria. We can see the timestamps. She logged into everything yesterday after she left the office and somehow erased it all or corrupted the files. We can’t get to anything.” Noel bit her lip, fingers twisting together.
My stomach swooped, brain finally clicking in. “Nothing? Not even previously saved versions?”
Their heads shook in unison and I glanced at Danny and Eric, as if they’d have any brilliant insights for me. Eric was rubbing his forehead, looking pained. Danny winced.
“That would have been Dylan’s job to cut off all the access. Maybe he forgot?”
My intestines squeezed tighter. I was sure he had forgotten. And I knew why. Because of the crazy fight we’d had in my office immediately after Victoria had left the building.
My breath hitched, like I was being constricted from the inside out. “Alright. Alright.” What to do? First things first.
“We need to make sure all her access is revoked. Passwords canceled, accounts closed, everything. See if there’s anything else she’s messed with, so there won’t be any more surprises down the line.”
“That, I can do,” Eric jumped in, eager.
“Let’s salvage everything we can. Anything that’s been saved on personal computers, sent over emails…Is there some sort of backup somewhere? IT?” I looked again at Eric, who nodded and pivoted to stride into his office.
“I’m not sure what they can do if she’s messed with the file histories, but I can ask.”
Noel sprinted back to her cubicle, Henry close behind.
“We can…see what we can recover and, if we need to, piece together the presentation again. Most of the work was already done. It won’t be perfect, but we can get it close.” I babbled to myself, wringing my fingers.
